Half the problem seems to be that we are not closing down or sitting deep as a "team". At times, even in the second half against Spurs you may have a couple of players closing down then there is a gap because the rest of the team is standing off. This makes it easy to play a simple ball for the opposition to take out 2 of 3 players and then they have space to run into as our back line just keeps backing off.

Part of it may be down to the fear due to a lack of pace. None of our defenders are quick so any ball over the top is going to be suicide especially considering Hart isn't a sweeper keeper (hence why Guardiola didn't want him.)

At the back they all seem to be playing on the cover, which means the opposition always get space between the lines.

Still trying to grasp just how fundamentally shit we are a team and a club.

The gameplan was appalling from the start - how we went in two nil up is due to two decent flashes of class and palace being awful

Did we actually have a shot on target second half? No.

Moving the final stages- as said elsewhere- we had a foul in the corner all we have to do is keep possession or run the clock down...guess what.

As for the final debacle= even when their GK got the ball in his hands, there's still ten west ham players between him and the west ham goal- they go the length of the pitch, in the 97th minute, and we dont get a touch, a tackle or a foul on. Unforgiveable. Just absolute rubbish- including hart's " hmm idont like it down there " dive.

We gave up possession all of the park, all day long- Noble was probably the worst culprit-0 I thought he had a complete shocker.

As for the future? With the games we have we'll be lucky to have five more points by christmas

Done well to get 2-0 up with the first goal coming from the first bit of quality shown the whole game. First half they were poor, really poor. No quality in the final third from them whatsoever.

I suspect it would have stayed that way too had we not let them back into the game. First Noble loses the ball on halfway when we was a man over then Ogbonna concedes a penalty when Townsend is going away from goal. All of a sudden they are in the game, the crowd got behind them and the momentum swung

Antonio was just plain stupid. First of all he comes on at RWB defending a lead and he appears to on purpose not defend. It was like he was sending out a message to Slav 'dont play me here' the amount of times he stormed forward then jogged back was ridiculous. For the goal. either keep it in the corner or go to the box and deliver a decent ball. It wasnt a hard cross to hit it was a lazy delivery

Then we should of took down Loftus-Cheek and not let Zaha turn but we havent got any bottle or steel once we have a lead

With the games coming up i fear for us, especially if Fonte, Cresswell and Reid join Zaba in missing Liverpool

Not only cpuld I ask the same of you in this case, but I'd say that being sent off doesn't absolve the players left if they've made errors. Also, being sent off for being a stupid cunt in the first half is not the same as one bad cross in my opinion.

Have a look at the heat mapsAntonio (came on min 62) did not appaer to do much defending as a wing back, which leaves us with a back 4. In fact after Font goes off (min 76) and Rice comes on, the right side of the defense looks abandoned. I think planned or not we ended with a back 4.Why wasn't Byram on the bench, injured?

Football.London account below which I know is hardly a reliable site. :-) Zabaleta was injured I thought so he had to make the change but it seems to echo the thoughts of many fans.

Strange substitutions

Bilic's decision to bring on Michail Antonio for Pablo Zabaleta midway through the second half backfired completely.

We all know that Antonio is not a right wing back - which is where he was deployed when he came on - and the warning signs were there from the off as he was caught out of position twice by Wilf Zaha within minutes of each other.

But the real killer was with 30 seconds to go and Antonio near the byline, he crossed in the ball to no-one, Palace broke and Zaha got the leveller. Antonio had his head in his hands at full time and rightly so.

The change from Bilic completely changed the game in a negative way for the visitors as all of a sudden, the formation was all over the shop, no-one knew what their role was and Antonio was pretty much the only player on the right hand side.

With Pedro Obiang on the bench, it would have made more sense to bring him on and shift Edimilson Fernandes to wing back, who is a better defender than Antonio. Bilic didn't do that and it cost the visitors three points.

A slightly different question. I was traveling yesterday afternoon and missed the 2nd half. Did Bilic switch to a back 4 ? I ask because its also a recurring tactical issue. We play 4 at the back we concede... a lot of goals.

I understand why he wants to play it to ensure he can play all his "best" players but it continues to see us ship goals. Its not perfect as it tends to mean 1 up front and yes players made errors yesterday but we looked reasonably comfortable first half.

Antonio had already started wasting time, holding up play in the corner prior to his dozy points killing pass. As minutes before he won a free kick that instead of the team going for goal, tried holding it up and lost it.

We set up the second half to sit back inviting pressure, time wasting as much as we can and got mugged. In fact we were lucky we even got a point. Shit tactics and even worse execution.

Serious question - why didn't you apply the same logic to Carroll a few weeks ago? He was sent off an hour before Burnley scored. Cresswell should have stopped the cross, it was an appalling piece of defending, and Chris WOOD was left all alone in the box. Yet you were quite happy to be critical of Carroll for costing us 2 points, rather than focusing on all the other things that led to the goal.